A business with an online presence knows that content is king. Without clear, concise content a business cannot reach the maximum amount of customers that they could be.
How does a business start with content marketing? The key is to create a content marketing plan. Here are the five steps to follow to create your company’s own content marketing plan.
Step 1: Ask Yourself The Important Questions
To get started on a content marketing plan, you will first have to ask yourself a few questions. One of the most important questions to ask yourself is: why do you want to create this content? Content can be useful in different ways, so it is important to know why it is essential for your business to have it.
The next question to ask yourself is: what type of content will you create? You should look to your existing audience to understand the type of content they are looking for and in what format.
The last question to ask is: how will you create and distribute content? You will want to decide who will be creating your content and to what specifications. Once the content is created, you will need to determine how you will distribute it to both your audience.
Step 2: Decide on Your Goals
When it comes to content marketing, there are two main goals that you will want to create. The first goal is what you want to achieve with your marketing campaign. Are you looking to generate more leads? Do you want to expand your business into another market? Or do you simply want to leave your audience better informed about your product, service, or industry overall?
The second goal you will want to include in your content marketing plan is the overall marketing goal for your business. Most businesses have a marketing goal of reaching a wider audience with their products and services, but you can measure this type of goal in many ways. Having a clear goal will help you determine what metrics you need to watch in order to see whether the campaign was a success for your brand.
Step 3: Outline Your Product or Service
Your goals ultimately lead to the sale of the products and services that your company offers. So how well do you really know your product or service? If you were the inventor, you may know it pretty well. If not, you will want to take some time to outline the full features of your product or service to make sure that even those who know nothing about your brand will still be able to understand what this product or service can do for them. This is essential to include in a content marketing plan especially if you are using this plan to speak with investors or outside content marketing specialists.
Step 4: Figure Out Your Audience
Once you know what you have to offer, the next step in crafting your content marketing plan is to discover who belongs in your target audience. You may already know what your ideal customer personas are, but with content marketing, you may be able to narrow or expand your audience, depending on your industry and where your product or service lies within that industry.
Your customer personas are the key to crafting content that is both informative and entertaining. Using these personas, you can get a better idea of how to craft that content around your product or service so that you may include a call to action, but wouldn’t leave the customer with nothing more than a long-winded advertisement.
Step 5: Connect the Dots
The last step in creating your content marketing plan is to make sure that all the dots are connected. You need to be able to clearly see the path between the wants and needs of your customer and the product or services you sell. In between the start and finish line is where you will find your marketing content. This content is the conduit needed to get your customers from thinking about buying your company’s product to realising that they have a need for it, and once they have it, their situation will be much better off.
Crafting a content marketing plan is a unique journey for every business and can be the missing piece your business needs for lasting success. Are you ready to take your content marketing to the next level? If so, please contact us to see how we can assist your business.
